Us, You, #MeToo

It has been one year since the New York Times published a report on the numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. The article unleashed the #MeToo movement that has swept across the globe in almost every industry, profession and calling, including art and publishing. To mark the anniversary of this historic moment for women to speak out and share their experiences of sexism and sexual harassment, in our Nov/Dec issue of ArtAsiaPacific we focus on artists who, through their work, highlight the challenges women face.

For our cover Feature, Beijing desk editor Tom Mouna met up (2007). Here, the artist sits in front of the camera speaking calmly about her childhood, specifically her intensely academic-focused upbringing and her parents’ wishing she were a boy. Only at the end does she appear to be in pain as she talks, and it is revealed, through the blood spilling from her lips, that she has spoken for more than seven minutes with a razor blade in her mouth. Ma’s artworks looks at cultural phenomena beyond her own life as well, from the shifting colors of women’s hosiery to online automobile subcultures. Mouna reflects, “Perhaps not surprisingly for an artist whose practice deals with the idea of control or the lack of it—over one’s own agenda, over the female body, over the larger societal shifts occurring in Beijing and China—Ma likes to collect objects, as if to temporarily possess narratives that they carry or for the purpose of allowing her to process conjectured histories.”